Happy Halloween!

Our Halloween didn't go quite as planned. We had Nico's class party in the morning, which was very cute even though he was a little overstimulated and also refused to wear his costume for the party. The forecast called for severe thunderstorms right at trick-or-treat time, so the city moved trick-or-treating to Friday night. Since we have previous unchangeable plans for Friday evening, we attempted the indoor trick-or-treat at the mall. It was HORRIBLE. Hundreds of kids standing in long lines for lame candy. We blew through to the end of the building, let Nico ride the carousel once, and then got the hell out of there. It also didn't storm and in fact barely rained at all the entire evening. As we were driving to my parents' to visit, I noticed that a few houses in our neighborhood had their outside lights on, so Nico and I went rogue once we got home and walked around for a little bit. I'm so glad we went out...the neighbors we did see were happy to see a trick-or-treater and he didn't know that it was a minimized experience compared to most years. After our walk, MB and I agreed to let Nico eat a whole (fun-sized) packet of M&Ms and watch Spookable Pooh, and then I got in my yearly viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I spent all of yesterday feeling really, really cranky about how badly the weather messed up our plans, but now that it's over it really wasn't a bad day at all.

The boys were bats for two parties last Sunday...Elliott's costume is a hand-me-down from Nico's first Halloween, and I made Nico's to match from a store-bought hoodie. I'm really proud of how it turned out, though hopefully no one will ever inspect the hand-sewing up close. MB really wanted to dress up this year so we resurrected the samurai robes that my mom made us back in college. Elliott had another Nico hand-me-down to wear, and Mom made Nico his own buttery yellow samurai robe. It wasn't until the end of the evening that I noticed I hadn't snapped any solo photos of Nico in his robe. I asked him if he'd put it back on over his pajamas for a picture, but he declined. I'll have to try again tomorrow.